I never thought I would want such a dark floor in a bathroom, but I really liked these tiles when I passed by them about a year ago at Lowes. They have been in the back of my mind ever since, and when I saw an opportunity to put them in the bathroom: I jumped on it. I love the all-white bathrooms that have become so popular: They are so clean and fresh looking, but can also tend to look institutional and dull if you are not careful. That is why I decided popping these floors into our guest bath made the perfect splash of contrast for my rendition of an all-white bath.
The tile adhesive removal went like a dream. We scoped the removal-project to take 10 hours based on our experience with the floors in the master. To our delight, the adhesive came up in a record 2 hours. Not sure if it was the experience under our belts, a difference in the adhesive that was used, or a new technique involving a putty knife that made all the difference, but I am grateful for whatever it was!
After the adhesive was up, it took about 2 hours to cut and lay down the new tile. I could do most of the cuts with a tile cutter, but for the curved cuts around the toilet, Charles used an angle saw. Thankfully we already had both the tile cutter and the angle saw from previous projects. It always nice when you get to re-use old tools – validates the original purchase in your mind. Because the gyp-crete floors are somewhat uneven, we used a lot of adhesive and a large trowel to help level. This lengthens the dry time as well as the labor effort, but is worth it to have nice flat floors that will not crack under foot. The tiles were down just in time for GA tech kick off vs. Miami…. let’s hope the bath ends better than the game.
The adhesive was dry by Sunday afternoon, and it took me about 40 min to lay-down the grout. We chose a dark grout that was just a little lighter than the tiles. Because the tiles are meant to look like wood, we didn’t use any spacers. This means there was very little room for grout. I probably only used a cup for the whole floor – no idea what I will ever use the rest of the tub for. Too bad they don’t sell it by the cup 🙂
In my opinion, the most annoying part about grouting, is the buffing stage. After the grout has had about 30 min to set, you need to buff any grout that got on the tiles off before it dries. I have learned that while it is annoying to buff off, its worse to let it dry and have to get it off later. You can see there is a bit more clean-up to do, but I wanted the grout to fully dry before I put any more water down and officially check floors off the list. Because construction in a messy job, and everything ends up on the floor, I will wait until after we are done with the rest of the project to give them a final cleaning.
love the tile!! 🙂